Plugged In

You've been through these hallways dozens of times. You hope and pray that something will be different this time, that a path forward will leap out at you. Except it's more of the same, just eerie music and dead-ends.

Axiom Verge (PS4, $20) is an old-school experience. It’s obviously inspired by early Metroid titles – the first few hours feel like you’re playing a long lost Super Metroid game – but it manages to forge its own identity. You're set loose on a massive planet, slowly exploring its depths by using tools and upgrades to access rock-covered caverns and electronic gateways. If the spirit of unguided exploration excites you, it's safe to say that you'll enjoy most of what this compelling indie game has to offer.

Forget Wrestlemania - the real battle of titans this weekend was held at a Marriott in Stamford, CT.

The event: The 38th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The combatants: Tyler Hinman and Dan Feyer, the reigning kings of crosswords for the past 10 years.

As most expected, the three-day tournament came down to the two men. Each has won five consecutive titles at the event. This year was the tie-breaker.

They donned sound-dampening headphones and began working on the giant white-board puzzles in front of a packed crowd. In the end, Feyer completed his puzzle an astonishing half-second ahead of Hinman to pick up his sixth win in a row, along with a $5,000 check and a commemerative silver bowl.

Concerned that VR gaming will make you queasy or lightheaded? Researchers at Purdue University may have sniffed out the solution.

David Whittinghill, an assistant professor in Purdue’s Department of Computer Graphics Technology, says 'simulation sickness' could be nipped in the bud by simply sticking a giant fake nose on the screen.

Yep, virtual Groucho glasses provide a fixed visual reference, which you brain can latch onto to prevent you from experiencing vertigo or motion sickness. It's the same reason you're less likely to experience sickening sensations in a flight simulator, since the game's cockpit gives you a similar reference point.

"The problem is your perceptual system does not like it when the motion of your body and your visual system are out of synch," says Whittinghill. "So if you see motion in your field of view you expect to be moving, and if you have motion in your eyes without motion in your vestibular system [a liquid-filled part of your inner ear that helps you balance] you get sick."

It’s also a game about death. It’s about vile monsters smashing, slicing, clawing, and chewing you to bits. It’s about horror, frustration, salty language, and broken controllers.

What keeps you playing Bloodborne , the incredibly challenging PS4-only role-playing game crafted by demented developer From Software, is a spark. It’s hard to see, a flicker in the darkness often obscured by the rage of yet another failed attempt to kill a thing you are clearly in no shape to kill. But it’s there, a glimmering beacon, a calm voice telling you that despite a learning curve shaped like a wall and hours spent futilely jabbing at creatures so hellish that you vaguely worry about the mental health of the people who created them, you are going to be OK.

Thirty-seven years after its debut, it's still a lot of fun to watch the iconic Space Invaders aliens blink out of existence when your shot lands on screen.

But watching them catch fire? That’s better. Way better.

Using a laser cutter, an Arduino mini-computer, and a terrific sense of imagination, a hobbyist in the U.K. has created a real-world version of the arcade classic that literally burns the aliens up when your aim is true.

"It’s got aliens, lasers and general destruction so what’s not to love, especially if you could replicate most of that functionality in the real world," said creator Martin Raynsford.

The project took about four months to conceptualize, but once Raynsford knew what he had to do, it took him just a few nights to put together, he says.

The bug-like creatures are made out of paper in this version, and when hit by the laser, they burst into satisfying flame. The ‘shields’ are made of foam, and just like the game, they block the first shot by the player. That initial volley burns a hole through the shield, though, making subsequent blasts through it possible.

It’s a Nintendo game lacking any recognizable Nintendo characters. It’s a shooter, but the goal isn’t to shoot people. It’s about online team play, but the Wii U isn’t exactly an online powerhouse. Splatoon doesn’t make a great deal of sense on paper.

But Nintendo doesn’t stare at spreadsheets when they create games, and after spending a few hours shooting through Splatoon at Nintendo’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, I’m sold. Splatoon ’s clever, quirky design is classic Nintendo: confident, smooth, and more than anything, just plain fun.

What is it, exactly?

Splatoon might be a shooter at heart, but it isn’t so much about shooting other players as about shooting the level itself.

You’re an Inkling, a bizarre human/squid hybrid armed with a gun that shoots colored ink. Your goal is to douse the level in your team’s color while preventing your opponent from doing the same. Yes, you’ll ‘kill’ other players by pelting them with paint, but that’s only a means to an end. If your team is out-inked, you lose, and all those kills were for naught.

In 1999, most real-time strategy games were rather crude, two-dimensional affairs. The genre was still young, and even state-of-the-art titles like Starcraft and Age of Empires II lacked the visual pizzazz of the era’s first-person shooters.

Then along came Relic Software’s Homeworld , which boldly took real-time strategy into the third dimension, and made a huge splash doing so. In place of mashed-up piles of 2D pixels slugging away at each other, Homeworld starred lithe spacecraft executing balletic attack runs against a backdrop of vast emptiness. At the time, there was no other game like it.

Fifteen years later, Gearbox Software has created a remastered version, combining both Homeworld and its sequel Homeworld 2 into a single package. The result simultaneously rekindles nostalgia for a classic while highlighting the design flaws that an initial ‘wow factor’ helped to obscure years ago.

On Thursday, Hasbro revealed the results of a fan competition to choose which cities would appear as properties in Monopoly: Here & Now. March 19 marks the 80 th anniversary of the classic board game.

Some 4 million votes were cast over three weeks by board gamers in 182 countries. The big winner? That honor goes to the unlikely choice of Pierre, South Dakota, which topped the votes in the U.S. (Lima, Peru was tops for the global edition.). Pierre takes over Boardwalk, the most coveted property on the Monopoly board.

So how did a city of just 13,984 people beat out significantly bigger cities like New York and Boston? It came down to a coordinated effort.

“Our community members, school district, local media and several state government offices all worked together to make Pierre the Boardwalk space … and we’re thrilled to be the top spot,” said Pierre Mayor Laurie Gill.

It's safe to say that a video game about heavily-armed police officers shooting up city streets could hardly have come out at a worse time.

Even though Battlefield Hardline is supposed to be inspired by over-the-top Hollywood cop flicks like Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon , it's next to impossible not to have troubling images of Ferguson, Missouri jump into your head when watching armored SWAT teams cruise through an embattled city in the game's multiplayer mode.

But Battlefield Hardline is smarter than it lets on. In a surprisingly nuanced campaign, Hardline balances real-world politics with hammy action moments to deliver a heady mix of honest commentary and entertaining action.

Hall of Fame QB Joe Montana is trying to revive his long dormant video game franchise, Joe Montana Football . And according to a Twitter post, he’s charging downfield.

“It just got Unreal,” Montana tweeted on Monday, along with a screenshot bearing the Unreal Engine 4 logo and the hashtag #joemontanafootball16 .

Montana’s been hinting at work on a new game for a while now. Back in October he tweeted a gif of himself doing a little motion capture – the 58-year old looked pretty nimble – though the Unreal post is the first to include an actual in-game image.